What happens
Dr. Alexander Manette, a physician, has been imprisoned in the Bastille for many years, and his story is told in this broadcast of A Tale of Two Cities, from the Mercury Theatre on the Air series, first aired on July 25, 1938, with Orson Welles as Dr. Manette. Manette is called to treat a dying young peasant and his sister's family after a nobleman's abuse, and he later becomes the subject of a wrongful account that he cannot fully remember. Jarvis Lorry, a banker, escorts Manette's daughter Lucy to Paris, where her father is found and brought to London. Lorry is also a witness at a treason trial in London where Charles Darnay stands accused, and a dissolute lawyer named Sidney Carton takes an interest in him. The broadcast follows these figures across the years leading into the French Revolution.
Late eighteenth-century France, including the Bastille and Paris, and London, during the years before and during the French Revolution
Characters: Dr. Alexander Manette, Jarvis Lorry, Lucy Manette, Charles Darnay, Sidney Carton, Ernest Defarge, Madame Defarge
Listen for: Dr. Manette's shifting state of mind when he hears Darnay's name, and the courtroom identification that turns on Sidney Carton's resemblance to the prisoner
Written from the episode itself; it never gives away the ending. Every recording is remastered for the stream: cleaned of rumble, hiss and mains hum (and the old TV whine where we found it), then levelled in two passes to steady broadcast loudness, so one show is never quieter than the next.